The French colonial green, white, and black banner of Syria
adapted by the West’s proxy “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) had long been
forgotten in the sea of black banners held aloft by Washington and
Riyadh’s more extreme ploy to gain leverage upon and more direct access
to the battlefield.

However, as Syrian forces backed by its
regional allies and Russian airpower overwhelm these forces while
building alliances with other factions, including the Kurds, the West’s
entire regime change enterprise faces ignominious collapse.

It
appears that – having exhausted all other options – the West has
decided to change as many of those black banners back to the “rebel”
green, white, and black as possible, before the conflict draws to a
close, giving the West the most favorable position achievable ahead of
“peace talks.”

The West’s Shape-Shifting Proxies

For years, just looking at maps –
including those produced by Washington-based think tanks themselves –
revealed the true nature of Syria’s ongoing conflict. Forces could be
seen flowing into the country as one would expect amid an invasion, not a
“civil war.” While the West’s military campaigns over and upon Syrian
soil claimed to be taking on the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS), it
was clear that nothing was being done about cutting off the obvious
supply corridors sustaining ISIS’ fighting capacity.

In
other words, the US and its “coalition’s” war on ISIS was feigned. No
genuine military campaign would ever be fought on the front lines while
neglecting the enemy’s logistical lifelines – especially when those
lifelines led from NATO territory.

It wasn’t until Russia’s intervention on
behalf of the Syrian government, that these corridors were targeted and
disrupted – thus fully exposing the gambit for all the world to see.

Not
surprisingly, as soon as this began, it had an immediate effect on the
West’s proxy forces across the country. Since then, Russian-backed
Syrian forces have incrementally begun sealing off Syria’s borders,
isolating stranded terrorist factions within the interior of the
country, and retaking territory as these forces atrophy and dissipate.

For years it has been asked why the West
has done nothing about cutting these obvious supply corridors leading
into Syria and sustaining terrorist factions like ISIS, Al Nusra, and
their allies – groups which now clearly constitute the vast majority of
militants fighting the Syrian government – even by the US government’s
own admission.

As the global public becomes increasingly aware of this glaring point of
logic, it appears that the West is now attempting to cynically leverage
it, while simultaneously rescuing thousands of trapped terrorist
mercenaries facing encirclement and eradication in the closing phases of
the Syrian conflict.

Just last week, the “New Syrian Army,” a
monkier for the discredited FSA, suddenly appeared on the Iraqi-Syrian
border, “cutting off” ISIS supply lines leading back and forth between
the two countries.

Syrian rebel fighters seized a border
crossing with Iraq from Islamic State on Friday, Britain-based war
monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.Islamic State had
controlled the al-Tanf border crossing, which is also near the
Syrian-Jordanian border, since May last year after seizing it from
Syrian government forces. It had been the last border crossing with Iraq
that was under the control of the Syrian government.

The
only “source” is the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is in
fact a single man living in England who regularly coordinates with the
British Foreign Ministry.

One could ask why such border
interdiction operations haven’t been done before, and in fact, why these
“rebels” who are admittedly harbored, trained, funded, and armed in
Jordan and Turkey to begin with, didn’t first begin by securing Syria’s
borders to prevent ISIS from entering the country in precisely the same
areas “rebels” are supposedly operating?

The answer is simple. The West had no
intention of stopping ISIS. In fact, ISIS is the “rebels” and the
“rebels” are ISIS. Their “taking” of the Syrian-Iraqi border is
superficial at best. The weapons, cash, and fighters will still flow,
just as they do past NATO forces along the Turkish-Syrian border. The
only difference is that now these terrorists will be flying the “FSA”
flag, lending them protection amid a ceasefire agreed to in good faith
by the Syrian government and its allies.

Rebels are Not Prevailing – ISIS is Just Flying a New Flag

The
ceasefire has, at least temporarily, bought time for terrorists groups
Syria and Russia have – perhaps mistakenly – recognized as militant
groups to be negotiated with. Taking full advantage of this, the “FSA”
is now suddenly appearing as if rising from the dead, everywhere ISIS
and Al Qaeda have dominated for years.

The New York Times published its own
desperate bid to convince the global public that once again
“pro-democracy protesters” were climbing out of the rubble in Idlib and
Aleppo – two cities admittedly overrun by Al Qaeda and ISIS long ago –
and flying the “FSA” flag.

Street protests erupted across
insurgent-held areas of Syria on Friday, as demonstrators took advantage
of the relative lull in airstrikes during a partial truce, coming out
in the largest numbers in years to declare that even after five
punishing years of war they still wanted political change. Under the slogan “The Revolution Continues,” demonstrators waved
the green, white and black pre-Baathist flag adopted during the early,
largely peaceful stages of the revolt, before the proliferation of armed
Islamist factions with black jihadist banners.

Five years on from the so-called “Arab
Spring,” the fully engineered nature of the original protests in 2011
have been so thoroughly exposed and understood by the public, that few
if anyone believes these protests now are anything but a desperately
staged public-relations campaign to prove that there are people
elsewhere besides Washington, Langley, London, and Brussels, that still
seeks regime change in Syria.

The West’s terrorist proxies are
changing from a war-footing – having lost the war – to a last-ditch
posture of claiming legitimate opposition in hopes of salvaging what’s
left of the political networks and terrorist fronts that collaborated
with the West in this highly destructive conspiracy.

“Uprising” in Al Raqqa

Finally, in the very heart of the West’s
proxy terrorist forces, Al Raqqa – the defacto capital of ISIS – there
are suddenly reports of “uprisings” by the local population. This
happens conveniently as the Syrian Arab Army approaches from the west
and Kurds descend upon the city from the northeast.

Faced with a cash shortage in its self-declared caliphate, the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has slashed salaries, asked Raqqa
residents to pay utility bills in black market American dollars, and is
now releasing detainees for a price of $500 a person.

While the Telegraph credits “coalition airstrikes” for this turn of fortune, it is quite obvious that Syrian and Russian airstrikes along the Turkish border destroying
entire convoys bound for ISIS territory has led to a reduction in ISIS’
fighting capacity as well as its ability to administer seized
territory.

Image: If Major Yaser Abdulrahim looks like he’snever wore his FSA uniform out into the field,that’s because he hasn’t. He is not a member ofthe FSA at all, and is instead a commander ofthe Fatah Halab, an umbrella group for Al Qaedaaffiliates armed and funded by both the US andSaudi Arabia.

With a terrorist force the West has
spent 5 years and untold billions creating facing complete encirclement
and eradication, what options are left? An “uprising” where suddenly the
entire city is flying “FSA” flags, thus negating the need for Syrian or
Kurdish forces to move in and retake the city?

That appears to be the narrative the
West is already preparing – in Raqqa and elsewhere across Syria – as a
component amid the so-called “ceasefire” and “peace talks.”

The BBC had dressed up a terrorist commander in FSA regalia for
an interview – but included footage of the commander in the field
operating under clearly terrorist banners. It was but an individual
example of what it appears the West is doing now on a much larger scale –
playing dress-up to save its immense but now stranded terrorist hordes.

During early victories against the
West’s proxy forces, Al Qaeda and ISIS militants would dress as women to
flee the battlefield. Now, they are dressing up as the otherwise
nonexistent “FSA.”

Will the West expect Syria and its
allies to negotiate with this phantom army operating under a fictional
banner? For Syria and its allies, what the West is doing is a clear
violation of the spirit of the ceasefire and of upcoming peace talks. It
is also a reaffirmation of the West’s disingenuous commitment to
fighting terrorism – clearly using it as a tool to fight its battles for
it, to serve as a pretext for intervening when terrorism alone cannot
achieve an objective, and then, when all else fails, covering up entire
legions of terrorists so that they can live to fight another day.

About Priyankar Calicut

Reporting for publications like Foreign Policy, TIME, World Affairs Journal, and Political Science Monitor, Sotloff called himself on Twitter a "stand-up philosopher from E.S" and was a big E.S Heat fan.